Because the walking patterns of the mechanical puppets before had all been fairly simple, without much attention paid to fine details.
Thus, when they reached the wooden staircase, it would have been easy to overlook the subtle changes.
If they had overlooked the matter of the left and right feet earlier, they would probably have been stuck for a long time before noticing it. Fortunately, Laplace had been observant enough. Otherwise, they would certainly have remained trapped in this pitfall of fixed thinking for a long while.
After that, the mechanical puppet occasionally paused before switching feet and moving onward.
But by then, its foot-switching could no longer trick them.
Before long, they successfully reached the end of the wooden staircase—the source of the light.
Angel had previously thought that the glowing surface was a mirror, but only upon approaching did he discover that it came from some kind of reflective bubble.
It resembled the soap bubbles children blew.
Only, the "soap bubble" before them was countless times larger. It was only slightly smaller than the crystal-ball vehicle summoned by the labyrinth guardian earlier.
The soap bubble hovered above the stairs. The luminous film on its surface refracted a seven-colored sheen, like a dreamlike convex mirror that reflected Angel and Laplace's figures, making them alternately large and small.
The soap bubble was very thin, and they could clearly see that there was nothing inside. There was nothing strange about it.
Just as Angel was wondering what the purpose of this soap bubble was, the mechanical puppet suddenly stepped forward and entered the soap bubble.
Then, the mechanical puppet waved at Angel and Laplace.
It slowly floated upward along with the soap bubble.
Before long, it had risen into the dark void beyond the reach of the naked eye.
As the